On October 13, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, John H. Buchanan, Jr., Philip M. Crane, Charles R. Jonas, William J. Scherle, Floyd D. Spence, Daniel J. Flood, John J. Ryan, Robert L. F. Sikes, Joe D. Waggonner, Jr., Clement J. Zablocki, William E. Timmons, Richard K. Cook, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:16 pm to 12:31 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 590-006 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Mr. President.
Mr. President.
Mr. President.
Mr. President.
Mr. President.
You're the ones that don't want me to punch something.
Yes, we have a need for advice, President.
Let me see so that we can have a group photograph.
Let's get a group photograph.
Who's trying to present things in sight?
Mr. President, I have the happy privilege of presenting to you the much-directed review signed by 336 members of the House
7 to 7.5 percent of the membership, including the leadership, sir, on both sides of the aisle.
The Speaker, the Majority Leader, the Minority Leader, and the Whip.
We're very proud of that.
19 of the 21 committee chairmen and 19 of the 21 random minority militia committees.
19 to 21.
19 to 21.
And, sir, we feel that this show is very clear that the House is
strongly opposed to the expulsion of the Republican town from the United Nations.
We know that that is the primary objective of this moment, to see that nationalist China is not kicked out of the UN.
Now, the other things that will come later, but we realize this is the fight now.
We are with you.
We are for what is being done by our team in the United Nations.
We are the State Department for this very important objective.
We want to join forces and help you
and your leadership and our U.N. team in any way that we can to ensure that this is done.
And I'm going to ask my good friend Congressman Jonas to have a word with that.
And in terms of what I want to do with this, I'd like to have a word with that.
Really nothing that needs to be added.
I would really like to emphasize what Bob said in the closing sentences.
We're trying to be helpful.
We're trying to hold your hands up.
We appreciate the effort that George Bush has made.
You're top of the charge, aren't you?
I guess most of us.
We want to hold your hands up and show you that that's the support.
He doesn't have that.
We want the world to know that
The vast majority of the House of Representatives is doing this way about it.
How long did it take to get it done?
About a week.
About a week?
Well, I suppose there are other reasons.
There could be more.
We could get more, but we thought that the psychological impact of letting the country know, and letting the European people know of the feeling of the house, that we should get it free.
I guess this would be the goal.
I mean, this would be your number, but I am discouraged.
I was curious, and the Brazil guys were studying, so we didn't go far.
I don't know.
30 members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, 30 assigned, and many of them thought it should have been much stronger, even though they probably wanted to imagine the effect that the Taiwan works fell on the United Nations.
They keep it out, they keep it out.
Well, they're at the very, very least at our contribution to the cutoff city.
What is your opinion as to what attempts to our contribution have this?
I don't think there's any question that my committee will support that.
The hub's been... Why are you even on?
Why will these happen?
I've seen a little...
I've seen some of that.
Have you... Have you... Have you directly told Bush... Well, Bill is up there now.
He has said to jeopardize it.
Well, I... Let us suppose... Let us suppose... Let us suppose...
Well, I'm going to make a public statement on that.
Well, what I'm getting at is that the...
He would be better off not listening.
Yes, he would be better off not listening.
Mr. President, yesterday I submitted a bill that would limit our financial contribution to that percentage of population represented in the aggregate value by the United States, which was cut from, say, 36 to somewhere under 30 percent.
Everybody has mistaken impression that our share is in the 30 percent.
Well, it did say over 50 percent.
Well, this would cut it under 10 percent.
Well, I think the major factor, the major factor that Bill Rucker is talking about is the fact that, from a financial standpoint, that we would have a very difficult time with the appropriation.
Would you agree with me?
I certainly would.
I will if you let us, President.
It's definitely going to be a discipline to keep the President level with the corporation anyway.
Anyway, in fact, I don't think Johnson has a good building up there.
Not the building.
Good morning, thanks.
You're making more important sense than the building, Mr. President.
Actually, I'd like to be the one with the building.
Don't look at Johnson.
I've got work.
You know, I've got work.
Well, this is the...
If you want, we can do it.
We had it muted directly, so that's okay.
This is a sort of a question, but I know that in other states the list of the names of directors of state.
Here's a personal thing that I did on yesterday that I want to call your attention, which I included a letter from the State Department.
It pointed out the things that Secretary Rogers and the U.N. team are doing very effectively, and you'll find here that I say that the primary objective is to keep the Republic of China in the U.N.
I want you to have that.
We will send you on tomorrow the statement in the record, which is going today to show you the actual history of the place.
Sure.
Good.
Well, thank you very much.
My name is Hunter.
I take these.
Oh, I want to give you something.
How many of you, how many of you do not have president of the country?
You do not have something we do not have.
Well, we'll give it to all presidents and governors, and if you don't, if you already have, I'll give it to somebody else.
I'll give it to somebody else.
I'm very happy to have you.
I'm very happy to have you.
How many of you are golfers?
I remember when I played at the park, I got a friend who called all the guys and said, this is pretty nice, but I'll tell you what, the best thing you can give to some guy that gives you a great big check through the campaign is a golf ball.
Only if you give him a big check.
Very nice.
Very nice.
Very nice.
Very nice.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for coming in.
I know you're busy down there.
This ain't nothing.
We're working on this.
The speeches that are out there, all of that, they make a very, what is really important is what happens in some of these individual countries.
And that's what they did.
And Bush, Bush is doing an excellent job.
He said, you know, he knows how to count.
So, you know, I think that, plus John Loney's point, make it very lonely.
And I think it's very important not to say, well, get my checkered out and say, well, if that's the case, we will come see you all the time.
Right, well, good to see you.
Thank you.
Good to see you.
Right, Charlie.
Good to see you.
Thank you.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Oh, it's Larry.
Back in action.
Well, they were too sparky today.
They were well-covered yesterday.
We released enough.
They haven't had any knocks.
That's probably one of the major news days that they've ever had.
Since we've been here yesterday.
They've played with what you consider everything.
In fact, they played it, of course, they had the two big stories.
They played the Supreme Court story, too.
I'm still glad you went out and read that second statement, because that was beautiful.
And another thing, you know what?
You know, it's taken you to the memory.
That was the interesting thing, too.
America was the winner.
Right.
You see?
Dr. Archibald said he knew that.
No, but in a way, he knew.
I didn't know that.
He didn't know that.
He doesn't know more.
No, but I know that the whole network thing on the first 15 minutes was on the demonstration news, the press conference, the Moscow and then the Vegas News report.
But the newspapers, too, which is an indication, the whole front page is totally, you know, the Moscow trip, the Vegas trip, and then the Senate trip.
It's certainly a good combination.
It's about this cutting off of funds.
You might just say that John Ryan said that.
What did you say?
What did you say?
He said that the, uh, the, the, I don't know, he spelled it.
He believed it was possible to cut off a few of the funds.
What I'm going to say here is that
This is the administration position that shows the strongest support of the 1921 committee chairman.
1921, he's ranking members of the committees over 70% of the House.
This is an overwhelming indication that
that there would be serious, I just say that there would be, from a compensation point of view, there would be serious financial, serious problems of getting incorporation to the United Nations through the Charter, which is so important.
I just say, well, our attitude is, well, our attitude is, well, we're going to find more institutions.
That is where we are doing our best to stay.
That's where we are.
That's why we're here.
We're going to continue our fight to,
the United Nations, or whatever it is, we will be opposed to the expulsion.
And we won't do it again.
They moved it on the National Sports War.
It didn't show up in the...
I see.
I wonder somewhere you got it, because I just, as I threw that out there, and it came out, it did happen to come out, that's what they did.
They didn't do anything.
They did play it, but I didn't predict it.
Before the game started, because of the difference in the turf, but they moved on... All right, all right.